Funeral for a Friend?

So, a buddy of ours was informed recently by his superiors at work that they were aware of his internet musings on politics and culture and let us just say for the sake of clarification that "aware of" was not made in the context of "Hey, we're big fans, where do we sign up?"


Our jovially cantankerous moral scold was sufficiently freaked out about this to the point that he related that he may scale back his activity on the 'net while simultaneously seeking in-house legal counsel. Legal bubbas told him management had no grounds to interfere in any manner in any legal activity he chose to pursue outside of work. We weren't privy to the conversation but the foundation for this rationale was most likely deeply rooted in the 1st amendment of this nation's Constitution - you may have heard of it.


Good news, right? Wrong. Yes, perhaps justice and sanity won out in the end, but the damage had been done. The fact that our friend actually had to consider the consequences of his actions with respect to his workplace meant that the bad guys had snuck in a left hook on free speech to the extent our friend felt/feels compelled to keep watching his own back. We guess this is what is meant by putting a "chill" on things, kind of like how the Department of Justice has put a "chill" on reporters, you know, doing their job by snooping on their phone records as is the case with 20 Associated Press reporters and Fox News' James Rosen in two separate leak investigations.



Now, as recently, perhaps as 6 months ago we may have told our friend he was over-reacting to this and that maybe some time off from work rather than blogging might do his inner worker bee some good.

No longer.


Folks, at this point, it very much appears we have a rogue government on our hands. The aforementioned DOJ investigations, the IRS harassment of conservative groups and the NSA snooping of U.S. citizens all without any seeming consequences rather smug denials of knowledge and/or responsibility and worse yet, reassignments, paid admin. leave and even promotions for people central to these crises (again, we refuse to call these scandals as to our knowledge, no one was getting laid as a result of this lawlessness).


Yes, we very much have a Constitutional crisis on our hands as the very institutions we formerly trusted to uphold the law and that constitution are quite openly and quite shamelessly working to tear them down.


The following is a related missive from our friend that was passed along to a group of his friends which he did not want to post on his own site and also which we believe there was an implied permission granted to share with you all:

Friends,

On Friday, I worked at Catholic Charities food resource center. On Saturday, my wife and I taught the remarriage class for the Diocese. It's really weird, but the more of these things I do, the less American I feel. At the class, my wife and I worked to help people understand the problems and prepare for the issues of remarriage and blended families. It was great, but at the same time, in the back of my mind, I knew my government was actively working to hurt me and my faith. It's not that the government was indifferent, which I would fully accept, it was that it was pointlessly trying to hurt us through the HHS mandate.


We were working to keep society together while Sandra Fluke was giving speeches at the winning side's national convention and while the government actively looked the other way so Dr. Gosnell could slaughter babies.


I'm not disloyal or traitorous and I'm not going to pick up a rifle and go all Cristados, but I just can't help but think about this stuff.


Dittos for the Catholic Charities stuff. Many of our customers can't speak a bit of English despite being in the country for years. I used to get ticked off at this as an American, knowing it was idiotic not to have a common language. But now I see them as images of Christ and only want to help them. If the rest of America votes to give them government assistance and education in their own language, that's their problem, not mine. My problem is to love them.


I'm not leaving, I'm not giving up on fighting for what we collectively believe in through legal and proper means, it's just something I can't help thinking as I become more active within the Church.


It's such a tragedy that in working to improve society and help the poor I feel alienated from my government.



(signed)


PS - And if you must know, we make all clients at the food resource center and all the people in the class sign a statement swearing they will always hate gays. It's just what we do. All the time. Talk about gays. "Gays, gays, gays!" that's us.

So, the NSA was in league with our boy's employers in "monitoring" the activity of law-abiding Americans? No. (Well, nothing is off the table at this point but for the sake of discussion let's assume the two are entirely separate abuses of power).


In short, we see this as the gradual march of statism through our nation's institutions that has occurred over the past 40-50 years to the point we now have an entrenched institutional bias in our governmental institutions. An institutional bias that is inherently opposed to free speech and the exercise thereof and of other freedoms and liberties we have for so long taken for granted (please see also the 2nd, 4th and 5th amendments).


(Side note: We find no end to the irony that this collectivist/statist ideological bent finds its roots in the Free Speech movement and the New Left of the 60s.)



Yeah, our statist friends figured it out pretty easily and moved forward with the master plan leaving us conservative/libertarian types scratching our heads wondering from whence came that 2x4 upside our collective heads. Of course, this can be rationally explained away as a structural disadvantage as a goal of conservo-libertarianism is to decrease the influence of government institutions in our daily lives. Sheesh. How is that effective do-nothing passiveness any strategy for preventing a former constitutional republic from descending into tyranny?


Closing thought: If, by now, you are not a Constitutional radical, you haven't been paying attention or perhaps you are, indeed, a patsy for tyranny.



(Addendum #1: The Beltway establishment types, Democrat and Republican alike, all crawled out of their holes on the Sunday talk shows to defend the NSA super-surveillance program citing various unnamed terror plots it had help foil. With the Tsarnaev brothers, the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, to name just a few, all hiding in plain sight and all going quite un-foiled, the political class hacks are going to have to do a lot better job in convincing us than they did yesterday.

And let's just say we're 100% wrong and that the NSA super-duper citizen snooper program is teh most awesome counter-terror program ever all without infringing upon anyone's civil liberties, how can increased scrutiny and skepticism of the government ever be a bad thing?)

Sign of the times

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You just can't make this sort of stuff up but apparently, Sandra Fluke, the middle-aged Georgetown Law School student whose call for everyone but herself to pay for her contraceptive devices and which became a central plank in the Obama re-election platform is on the short list for TIME Magazine's Person of the Year.

Actually, since this election was a referendum on the entitlement class, it makes perfect sense.

Here's Michael Graham:

Can you think of anyone who better represents the America of 2012 than Ms. Fluke? I can’t.

She’s got it all: The “Generation Cupcake” inadequacy (“So what if she didn’t earn the award — give it to her, anyway!); the “Occupod” sense of entitlement (“Somebody should be buying my condoms, and it ain’t gonna be me!”); and, of course, the liberal detachment from reality (“There’s a war on women! We’re being oppressed! Just ask Hillary Clinton, Condi Rice and Oprah!”).

Then there’s the economic angle. One could argue that the icon of the failing Obama economy is the college grad with a worthless degree under his arm and a bed in his mom’s basement.

Time magazine gives us Sandra Fluke, with a bachelor’s degree in (no joke) Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, no marketable skills, and still on the academic track, living on the largess of others.

I’m not trying to be mean to Sandra Fluke. Unlike Rush Limbaugh I make no comment on her personal life or sexual proclivities.

But I also didn’t — and would never — put this unaccomplished 30-something on the “Person of the Year” list for publicly whining about paying her own bills.

And if I were Ms. Fluke, I’d be embarrassed by Time’s selection. I’d be pointing out the people who’ve actually made some impact— maybe Fidelity’s Abigail Johnson, or Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for insisting on attending school.

Ah, but I’m not Sandra Fluke, who used her “Person of the Year” moment to complain, in a tweet, about the “few women” nominated.

Yeah. In a day in time when our entitlement programs are threatening to swallow-up our economy and the fiscal cliff debate is centered around class warfare, a woman whining that you should pay for her rubbers and birth control pills is indeed the perfect candidate for TIME's award.

Rock on, Sandra!

Quote(s) of the day

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Given the state of the economy and persistent unemployment, we'd certainly want to talk about something else... anything else... so we can't really blame the Democrats for wanting to turn their convention into a rally for providing free birth control to 30 year-old Georgetown law students.

Here's Mark Steyn on the contraceptive mandate, Obamacare and who it is upon which war has really been declared:

So we can’t fight a war in Afghanistan, but we can fight a “war on women” that only exists in upscale liberal feminists’ heads. We can’t do anything about exploding rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, but, if you define “health care” as forcing a Catholic institution to buy $8 contraception for the scions of wealth and privilege, we’re right on top of it. And above all, we’re doing it for the children, if by “doing it” you mean leaving them with a transgenerational bill unknown to human history — or engaging in what Boston University’s Larry Kotlikoff, speaking at the International Institute of Public Finance in Dresden last week, called “child fiscal abuse.”

If that sounds a trifle overheated, how about . . . hmm, “legitimate fiscal rape”? No? Then let’s call it a “war on children.” Unlike the “war on women,” it’s real.

And here is what we wrote regarding L'Affaire Fluke back in February when this whole thing first blew up (linked above):

There you have it, folks... the logical conclusion to radical secular redistributive statism: taking the position that free contraception is somehow a right, or liberty interest, that others must pay for.

This is a perfect example of how making a good or service a "right" will necessarily entail the involuntary confiscation of property or wealth of others who will not enjoy the benefit of that "right", unless, of course, they are Biblically aquainted with, say, Ms. Fluke.

So gone is Ms. Fluke down the statist black hole that she seems unwilling to even hit up her partner for some help. Would it be too much to ask that if they go "dutch" for dinner that they do the same later on in the sack?

And what of this young lady's heartless and cruel parents that they would force their child to possibly cut out a pizza a week in order to properly finance her dalliances?

We appreciate, however, Ms. Fluke and her plight as no theoretical argument we could ever devise would illustrate perfectly the absurdity contained within ObamaCare. We thank you, Ms. Fluke for providing this invaluable service.

We're pretty confident millions upon millions of out-of-work Americans are thinking the same thing.

What we've been tweeting

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After thinking that the Democratic Party ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden had no campaign strategy as there is no way in hell they were going to run on their record, it appears things have changed

The Democrats have seized upon Republican candidate for Senate for Missouri, Todd Akin and his insipid remarks on rape and will turn their national convention into an Abortion-fest.


From the Washington Examiner:

With an eye on Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments and the GOP's mad dash away from the sinking Missouri Senate candidate, the Democrats are turning their upcoming presidential convention into a pro-choice assault on the Republicans with the help of major abortion supporters.

Just as the Akin crisis was reaching a crescendo, the Democrats on Wednesday announced that three starlets of the pro-choice movement will be featured at the convention, an event that will now drive the liberal charge that the Republicans are anti-women.

Democrats said that they will feature Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parent Action Fund, Nancy Keenan, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America and Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student whose plea for federal birth control funding drew the ire--and a subsequent apology--from Rush Limbaugh.

What's more, the Democrats are expanding their list of women ready to assail the GOP on women's issue, adding Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and actress Eva Longoria to the list that already includes Sen. John Kerry and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Democrats led by party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz believe that the Akin controversy--and his refusal to leave the Missouri Senate race--has revived their chances of winning a majority of women in the presidential race, key to re-electing President Obama. On Wednesday, for example, the party turned their homepage over to the affair with the headline: "The GOP is dangerously wrong for women." And with a devilish move, they included pictures of Mitt Romney, running mate Paul Ryan and Akin.

We'd like to add that NARAL is dangerously deadly for the unborn.

To the Democrats, though: good luck with that strategy.

Abortion never polls very high on the list of priorities when it comes to Presidential elections and it may not even be a blip on the radar considering the rampant unemployment, exploding deficits and the anemic GDP growth of this election cycle

But forget the general populace for a moment: is this strategy even going to work with women? We know an awful lot of women out there that are in charge of their family's finances and an awful lot of single women that collectively just might be a tad more concerned with their own job prospects and that of their husbands' and the fate of the economy than any fear-mongering as practiced by the Democrats with respect to their reproductive rights.

Its a good bet that many of these women remember the two-term Presidency of a social conservative, George Bush, who had Republican majorities for 6 years in those two terms and they might also remember that there was no real weakening of abortion "rights".

Along with that is the pander factor. Here's Barka Herman explaining (h/t: KT:

I own my own business, travel and entertain a lot, have many hobbies that I don't always get enough time for, and am considering writing a memoir. I donate money and time to causes I believe in. Birth control has never occupied more than one percent of my time ever in my life. I suspect the actual lifetime number is much lower than that.

So what is up with the entire birth control debate? Am I just a walking vagina? Is this insulting just to me or others?

We can totally see how many woman would feel demeaned by the politicization of one of their body parts. Excuse us: the cheap, crass politicization of one of their body parts.



Oh, almost forgot...

Our Tweet:

In order to drive the point home, the #Dems should prematurely terminate their convention on the 3rd and final day. #trimesters

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These aren't the "feminist" you're looking for

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The President was in Colorado Wednesday for a campaign visit featuring Sandra Fluke, the reverse anthropomorphic image of the satist love-child Juila, the Democrats' 21st century Susan B. Anthony.

You see, at one time, there was a set of people known as "feminist" who used to wear t-shirts that said stuff like, "Keep your laws off my body" and "What goes on in the bedroom stays in the bedroom" and stuff like that.

These days, historians will find evidence of "feminist" only in thrift shops, where, along with their principles, they have hocked those t-shirts.

But back to Colorado where Caleb Bonham interviews women acting like "feminist" but as can be seen and heard are clearly imposters or were paid-off by Bonham to look utterly clueless. "Feminist", as far as we can tell, is an extinct species.

(via Hot Air):




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From: "Keep your laws off my body" to "Pay me to have sex"... Yeah, you've come a long way baby.

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Missouri: Please show this man the door

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We've known for a while now that reproductive rights include opposing any sort of abortion survivor legislation and opposition to any sensible late-term abortion bans because that's a slippery slope or something, but now with ObamaCare Obamatax, reproductive rights also means that you will be forced to pay for others people's birth control.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon caved to pro-abortion groups, including, apparently, the Sierra Club because dead fetuses have a totally awesome carbon footprint?

After significant pressure from pro-abortion groups, Governor Jay Nixon vetoed pro-life legislation passed during this year's General Assembly. Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups pressed Nixon to reject Senate Bill 749, sponsored by Senator John Lamping that is a challenge to the contraceptive and abortion drug mandate issued by the Obama Administration.

The bill approved by the Missouri Legislature states that no employee or employer can be forced to purchase health insurance coverage which includes abortion, contraception, or sterilization, if those items or procedures are contrary to their "religious beliefs or moral convictions." The bill provides that no governmental entity can penalize an employee or employer for declining or refusing to purchase or provide such coverage.

Pam Fichter, President of Missouri Right to Life, criticized Nixon for vetoing the bill.

"During the 2012 Legislative Session, the Missouri Senate and House passed SB 749 in response to the HHS mandate from Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama Administration forcing religious institutions to pay for abortions," she told LifeNews. "SB 749 would have sent a clear message that pro-life Missourians oppose participating in the taking of innocent human lives against our religious beliefs."

"SB 749 also would have placed in statute the ability for people of faith to bring a lawsuit if they are forced to pay for morally objectionable procedures. Governor Nixon joins the Obama Administration in attacking our religious liberty by supporting the HHS mandate forcing all Missourians to pay for insurance that includes abortion coverage even if doing so is a violation of our religious beliefs," Fichter added. "SB 749 passed the Missouri House and Senate with strong bi-partisan support. Missouri Right to Life urges the legislature to override this veto in September. A veto override of SB 749 will show pro-life Missourians who will stand for our religious liberties."

A veto override is a distinct possibility as the bill passed both the Senate and the House by 28-6 and 105-33 margins, respectively (We submit that we don't know what percentage of votes would be needed in both chambers to override the veto).

And recall it was Missouri, home of Health and Human Services secretary and defacto Obamatax czar, Kathleen Sebelius, that gave ObamaTax a resounding if symbolic only vote of no-confidence a couple of years back in a public referendum.

Lamping's bill states that no employee or employer can be compelled to obtain or provide health care coverage for abortion, contraception, or sterilization, if such items or procedures violate their religious beliefs. The legislation would not reverse the impact of the contraceptive mandate in Missouri. However, it would become law in Missouri if the abortion drug mandate were to withdrawn by a new President, repealed by Congress, or invalidated by a federal court.

"The contraceptive edict issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requires that all health insurance plans include coverage for every contraceptive approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That includes the abortifacient drugs Ella and Plan B," said Joe Ortwerth of the Missouri Family Policy Council. "The mandate takes effect August 1st. Religious organizations other than churches will have until August 1st of 2012 comply. That means that Catholic institutions and employers will be forced to provide health insurance coverage that violates their religious doctrines, or drop their health insurance coverage altogether."

The Catholic Church in the United States is making it clear that they have no intention to comply. The Archdiocese of St. Louis and Catholic Charities of St. Louis have joined 42 other Catholic dioceses and Catholic agencies in filing 12 different regional lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services over the abortion drug mandate.

We, along with other groups of faith and also other freedom-lovers of little or no faith, stand with the Catholic Church.

We continue to be amazed that the administration continues to double down on a fight of their own making that is bad on principle as well as politics. It's not like the Sandra Fluke's of the world are not going to vote for Obama because he didn't strong-arm the Church into paying for her birth control.

The man who campaigned on bringing this country together has proven to be a liar on that count as we cannot imagine an issue that would represent the complete antithesis of that concept.


Oh, and another thing: We know nothing of Jay Nixon's policies or politics but because of this single act of cowardice in a state that has demonstrated at the public and legislative levels, they want nothing to do with this law, that they show him the door at the next available opportunity.

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Video clip of the day

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Fast becoming one of our favorite commentators, here's Bill Whittle on why ObamaCare Obamatax just won't work.

When we make a commodity into a right, their will be consequences.

If housing and food are right, you are under no obligation to do anything for it in return.

Whittle makes the point that we have for years here: making commodities a right will necessarily entail the involuntary confiscation of time, resources and wealth of others. If housing is a right, well, then we guess that contracting firm will be doing your house for free would be a gentler way of looking at it. And kindly add back deck off the master bedroom, would you, please?


Another point made we've been banging on our dinner plate: We don't care what the hell piss-pour life-style choices you make. Well, at least we used to not care. If we are now socializing the cost of healthcare, it suddenly becomes our business to know exactly what you are doing and who you are doing it with. Nothing better illustrated this than that dog and pony show congressional hearing a couple months back involving the 30 yr. old Georgetown Law School student, Sandra Fluke, making a heartfelt appeal for free birth control.

A matter that was once the exclusive domain of the consenting participants was reduced to glorified pan-handling. We take that back. More like pan-handling at gun-point.

Vietnam vet. Going to have sex tonight. Fork it over. God bless.

The entire liberal ideology pretty much imploded on itself at that point.

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Photo image of the day

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Memo to Ms. Fluke and the rest of you free-loaders out there who want the rest of us to pay for your sex life: contraception is so unavailable and expensive, Planned Parenthood is totally not putting up billboards like the one pictured here at the well-traveled intersection of Navajo Road and Lake Murray Blvd. in northeast San Diego to prove those very points.

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Also, in a Friday evening news dump the Obama administration is moving forward with their intended plans to have health insurance providers provide free contraceptive services:

Officials at the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and the Treasury today took the next step in the Obama administration’s effort to ensure women access to recommended preventive services while respecting religious liberty. The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued today outlines draft proposals to implement the policy announced by President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Feb. 10, 2012. This policy will provide women with access to recommended preventive services including contraceptives without cost sharing, while ensuring that non-profit religious organizations are not forced to pay for, provide, or facilitate the provision of any contraceptive service they object to on religious grounds. The Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued today gives all Americans the chance to formally comment on ideas for implementing this policy.

Of course, this is totally misleading in that, though religious organizations may not be forced to pay for contraceptive services, the health insurance companies will... and will pass that cost right back onto the consumer in the form of higher premiums. Also, this does nothing to settle the issue that this "compromise" forces religious organizations to offer a full range of contraceptive services against their conscience nor does it solve the conscience problem of religious organizations that are self-insured.


As that billboard ably demonstrates, there is absolutely zero need for the government to get into the business of dictating contraceptive services terms to health insurance policies. Please tell us where is the compelling need? And if there is one, don't you think that in an open and transparent market place, there would be health insurance policies that would offer those services?

This is simply about picking a fight, creating an artificial issue and shamelessly pandering to a naive and dim-witted voting bloc ahead of a presidential election.

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Uh, just a couple of more questions if you wouldn't mind?

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The absurdity of the statist-left knows no bounds. Plus, yet more evidence of the big lie.

From CBS Los Angeles:

The next influx of UC students may be asked to state their sexual orientation.

In January, the Academic Senate recommended that upon accepting admission offers from a University of California school students should have the option of identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender.

The UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools had mixed reactions but agreed that the question would allow them to collect important statistical information. They recommended putting the question on the SIR forms instead of college applications to protect students’ privacy.

(ed. note: for what purpose is this information collected?)

The news made the front page of UCLA’s campus paper Daily Bruin and is stirring controversy across UC campuses.

Supporters say the declaration will help campuses better plan for the needs of LGBT students.

Queer Alliance Board member Luis Roman said he has spoken with university officials about the proposal, which he enthusiastically supports, because he believes it will bring badly needed services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.

(ed. note: precisely what needs and services are required for LGBT students above that of the rest of the student population?)

Some members of that community believe it would show that there are many more LGBT students than university officials realize.

“I think the numbers are way bigger than we really imagine or know,” Roman said.

(ed. note: And? )

The sexual orientation question would likely be optional. That may mean that a sizable number of students would not respond or would do so dishonestly — skewing the results, said Raja Bhattar, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center at UCLA.

(ed. note: Questions: is this implying then that Bhattar thinks the inquiry should be mandatory and if so, how does making it mandatory compel the questionee from being any less or more forthright in his answer?)

The data would be collected from incoming freshmen and transfer students.

High school senior Brian Vo, who was visiting his friend Quincy Vien on campus, said he wouldn’t mind being asked.

“I think it’s fine. They’re just collecting information to kind of cater to the population. It’s not obligatory — it’s voluntary — so it’s up to you whether you want to or not.”

(ed. note: Cater? How about pander?)

That's about as much ridiculousness as can be fit into one news story. Congrats.

It really boils down to a social engineering statistical make-work program.


And with respect to the big lie: Similar to the contraception mandate and the valuable Congressional testimony given by their cute little mascot, Sandra Fluke, who decided to go public with her sex life and thinks that others should pay for the same, the statist-left's desire for the bedroom to be off-limits to inquiry and public policy proves itself to be just that... as it always has been.

With these two examples, the mask is beginning to slip in regards to the amount of privacy and autonomy the political class will allow you to have.



Addendum #1:

Via Leslie at Temple of Mut: the GOP's "war on reproductive rights" in graphical image form.

Who adds:

I think the “War on Women” is more along the lines of the film, “Wag the Dog“: Since, the president does not seem to have much of a chance of being re-elected, one of his advisers contacts a top Hollywood producer in order to manufacture a war that the president can heroically end, all through mass media.

I can imagine the discussion now: I am sure it went along these lines:

Stanley Motss: The President will be a hero. He brought peace.
Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean: But there was never a war.
Stanley Motss: All the greater accomplishment.

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Video clip of the day

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Scratchy throat? Nagging cough? Hey, everyone can agree that birth control is important but it sure seems to us that cough drops are a pretty important preventive medicine, also.


Thankfully, we've had a congressional hearing on the subject.

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Duly noted: a firm nod towards what has been a part of the Republican push-back effort and which is completely counterproductive to the issue at hand which is why is the government forcing others to pay for that which is an entirely voluntary choice?


Via their cute little mascot, Ms. Fluke, the statist-left is now insisting, against decades of protesting to the counter, that one's private sex life is now of public interest and concern. If you are asking the public to, in effect, pay for you to have sex, how can it be viewed as anything but?


We do consider it a relief to know, however, that the "Keep your laws off my body!" set has finally given up the ghost and through support of the contraception mandate has admitted their battle cry was nothing more than a high falutin' argument in favor of killing the unborn.

Honesty is indeed the best policy, wouldn't you agree?

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Back to the issue at hand

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Yes, Rush did a bad, bad thing as he has apologized for calling Sandra Fluke, the 30 year-old Georgetown University birth control activist who wants to be paid for having sex, a "slut" and later on a "prostitute" (by the by, liberal Kirsten Powers wants to know when prominent lib-talkers are going to apologize to the conservative women they have smeared).

Rush screwed up two-fold: first, by allowing the statist-left to use slut-gate? as a distraction from the real liberty interest issue that it is and secondly, despite affirming testimomy given by Ms. Fluke herself, it's never gentlemanly to call someone a "slut" in polite and/or public company.




Here's B-Daddy who's sick and tired, himself, of slut-gate:

Its been quite the brouhaha over the matter, with the Democrats yelling stupid talking points like: it prevents abortions and reproductive rights; and too many Republican uttering the nonsense that the government is paying for birth control. Lost in the shuffle is why the heck can't insurance companies offer a mix of coverage that their customers might actually want. My local grocery store recently added arugula to its vegetable line up; but under the Democrats argument, if Michele Obama urged the Secretary of HHS that this was a great idea, every supermarket would have carry the vegetable. And under the mandate theory of interstate commerce, nothing prevents Washington DC from dictating every single economic choice Americans make.

This is why I turn off the TV every time I hear bloviation on this subject; everyone is missing the point. It's the freedom, stupid.

He's exactly right. We want our health insurance plans to look like a combination of our auto insurance and a Chinese menu where we have a wide range of options of what we would or would not like coverage. Having to pay out of pocket for healthcare items as you would tires, oil changes and routine maintenance incentivizes healthy dietary, medical and lifestyle choices. That's how you bend downward the healthcare cost curve not buying some random person in your risk pool the pill.





And totally related, there is this:

The irony is that a federal mandate for contraception coverage renders women’s personal sexual choices a matter for public debate. The folks plucking sex out of the private sphere in this situation are the mandate supporters, not its opponents.

For years, haven't we been lectured by feminists and liberals at large about matters of the bedroom staying in the bedroom, how it's none of our business and for the government keeping its laws off our body?

Now ain't that a turn?: We have a leftist activist, in public, describing how much sex she has to the point that its breaking her and that is why she wants us to pay for it. Sorry, Ms. Fluke, since we are now paying for your birth control, your sex life now is our business. Congratulations for turning 4 or 5 decades of American liberal doxology on its head.

Just chalk this up to another pratfall of ObamaCare: since it will minimize personal responsibility and "skin in the game", no one's business will truly be their own.




Exit question: The creepy little misogynist, Bill Maher, just gave one of Obama's super PACs one million dollars. Being one of the biggest offenders in the Powers' piece linked above, will the President give that money back?

Tuition, books, housing and sex, of course.

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In previously describing the contraceptive mandate, we have said it is akin to paying someone else to have sex. It appears now we can remove that "akin" qualifier as that is precisely how people on the other side of this debate see it also.

Testifying before Nancy Pelosi's House panel, Georgetown University student and birth-control activist Sandra Fluke told the panel that paying for their own contraception is absolutely killing them in the pocketbook and that free contraception would sure help out in getting them through college.

"Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.

It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.

"Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school," Fluke told the hearing.

There you have it, folks... the logical conclusion to radical secular redistributive statism: taking the position that free contraception is somehow a right, or liberty interest, that others must pay for.

This is a perfect example of how making a good or service a "right" will necessarily entail the involuntary confiscation of property or wealth of others who will not enjoy the benefit of that "right", unless, of course, they are Biblically aquainted with, say, Ms. Fluke.

So gone is Ms. Fluke down the statist black hole that she seems unwilling to even hit up her partner for some help. Would it be too much to ask that if they go "dutch" for dinner that they do the same later on in the sack?

And what of this young lady's heartless and cruel parents that they would force their child to possibly cut out a pizza a week in order to properly finance her dalliances?


We appreciate, however, Ms. Fluke and her plight as no theoretical argument we could ever devise would illustrate perfectly the absurdity contained within ObamaCare. We thank you, Ms. Fluke for providing this invaluable service.


We await treatment of this matter from Iowahawk.

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